Emotion's Modulation of Attention and Memory: Effects of Aging

一个人有选择地关注重要信息，成功地学习和记忆新知识的能力受到情感因素的影响，并在一生中不断变化。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，肯辛格博士的研究将结合行为和功能磁共振成像方法来研究情绪影响注意力和记忆的方式，这些影响在成年生命周期中如何变化，以及认知能力或特质焦虑的个体差异如何影响情绪和认知过程之间的相互作用。先前的研究表明，带有情感色彩的物品比没有情感色彩的物品更容易吸引注意力。然而，这种显著性的增加也带来了代价：人们不太可能处理和记住与情绪激动的项目同时或之后出现的中性刺激。肯辛格博士的项目将研究一些关于认知和神经过程的未解之谜，这些认知和神经过程导致了情绪对注意力和记忆的影响。特别是，研究将解决以下问题：什么范围的情绪刺激引起注意效应？情绪影响注意力的神经机制是什么？情绪对注意力和记忆的影响在整个成年人的一生中是一致的吗？个体在多大程度上可以“超越”或克服对情绪信息的关注？是什么神经过程让这种行为发生？什么样的认知能力或情感品质能让一个人在情绪环境中灵活地做出反应？通过完善我们对情绪影响注意力和记忆的机制的理解，这个项目的结果可能会增加对在诸如恐慌症、焦虑症或创伤后应激障碍等情感障碍中观察到的注意偏差和记忆变化的理解。该项目还将促进在波士顿学院建立一个认知和情感神经科学实验室，为本科生、研究生和博士后提供研究培训和指导。与波士顿学院情感科学中心的联系将进一步促进该项目的研究成果向更广泛的科学界和公众的广泛传播。

The abilities of an individual to attend selectively to important information and to successfully learn and remember new facts are influenced by emotional factors and change over the lifespan. With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Kensinger's research will combine behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging approaches to investigate the ways in which emotion influences attention and memory, how those influences change across the adult lifespan, and how individual differences in cognitive ability or trait anxiety influence interactions between emotional and cognitive processes. Previous research has demonstrated that emotionally charged items are more likely to attract attention than are emotionally neutral items. However this increased salience imposes a cost: people are less likely to process and remember neutral stimuli that occur at the same time as or just after an emotionally charged item. Dr. Kensinger's project will examine a number of unanswered questions regarding the cognitive and neural processes that lead to such effects of emotion on attention and memory. In particular, the research will address the following questions: What range of emotional stimuli elicits attentional effects? What are the neural mechanisms through which emotion influences attention? Are the effects of emotion on attention and memory consistent across the adult lifespan? To what extent can individuals "override" or overcome the focus on emotional information? What neural processes allow such an override to occur? And, what cognitive capacities or affective qualities allow an individual to respond flexibly within an emotional environment? By refining our understanding of the mechanisms through which emotion influences attention and memory, the results from this project may increase understanding of the attentional biases and memory changes observed in affective disorders such as panic disorder, anxiety disorder, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This project will also facilitate the establishment of a Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience laboratory at Boston College, providing research training and mentoring for undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. Ties to the Affective Science Center at Boston College will further facilitate the wide dissemination of this project's research findings to the broader scientific community and to the general public.